


Spread Your Wings

by zoestertoaster



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Awkward, Daemons, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:43:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoestertoaster/pseuds/zoestertoaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossover into His Dark Materials.  MJN Air's newest pilot meets his crew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spread Your Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Well, darn. Apparently daemon!fic already exists for Cabin Pressure. (I hadn't read it before I wrote this, though... oops.)

"Hello!  This is your steward, Arthur, speaking.  Please make sure that your seatbelt is fastened at all times and your children or daemons are seatbelted in too or properly in a traveling crate if necessary!  I mean the children are in the travel crate and the daemons seatbel— _n_ _o, wait, I don't_ _mean that!_  I mean the children in seatbelts and the daemons in travel crates _if necessary_ and if not please disregard all the advice previously given and carry on having a lovely flight.  If you have any questions you should ask my mum because she'll probably know the answer because I can't remember how big a daemon can be before they have to be in a crate and anyway if you're flying with us you should know that already."

\--

"Hello, I'm Martin C-Crieff.  Call me Martin."

"Hello, Martin C-Crieff.  I'm Douglas Richardson.  Douglas will do."

Not, Martin decided, an auspicious beginning.  This was not even taking into account the positively hungry looks Hyacinth was getting from Douglas's daemon.  He picked her up and tucked her under his arm, sticking out the other one for Douglas to shake.  She squawked something irritable and not-repeatable at him when he shifted her to under the other arm because he'd stuck out the wrong hand.

"Er, so sorry, she gets nervous, you know."

"No, I really don't."

Douglas Richardson took Martin's hand (the right one) and shook it. He was tall, dark-haired, and impossibly authoritative, with a jaguar daemon  to whom no one would probably ever dare say anything but "yes ma'am".  Martin almost began to cry. This was not helped by the way that Sophia (or so she had been introduced) kept twitching her tail, or the eerie way she seemed to disappear into the shadows under the flight deck, tawny eyes reflecting the light.  Martin was desperately, desperately avoiding those eyes.

“Er,” he said, petting Hyacinth to calm her down so she would stop that moderately-embarrassing clucking, “I’ve never met a pilot who didn’t have a bird daemon before.  That’s… interesting.”

Douglas Richardson raised one supercilious eyebrow.

“ _That’s_ a glass house I wouldn’t throw stones in if I were you.”

“Hyacinth _is_ a bird!”

“And yet,” said Douglas, “she lacks the one characteristic we associate with birds, the capability of—“

But he was cut off by the door opening and something small, thin, and furry rocketing into the room.  It was followed by a boy, or rather, someone who could have been called a man if his smile didn’t make him look as though he were twelve years old.  His daemon bounded up to Martin and began to hop around in a highly excited manner, making small strange noises as it did so.

This was in no way threatening, Martin decided, although it was definitely _weird_.

“A new pilot!  You must be Martin and Hyacinth!” said the boy-man, who Martin dimly recalled Carolyn describing.  “Brilliant, I’m Arthur, and it’s so good to meet you!  Can I call you Skipper?  Oh, and that’s Evangeline!  We’re all going to have so much fun together, aren’t we?”

“As much fun as we always do,” said Douglas.

“Excellent!” said Arthur, over whose head sarcasm apparently flew like Hyacinth never would.

 _Oh God,_ thought Martin.  _What have I done?_


End file.
